We often purchase our groceries at the start of the week and end up with droopy lettuce and spoiled salmon seven days later. 

Considering the different shelf-lives of different ingredients can take your meal planning to the next level. 

Planning recipes that highlight fresh produce at the beginning of your week and saving your packaged meat or pasta nights for the end of the week will result in less food waste and more money for the following grocery trip. Start your week with meals that highlight more perishable produce like tomatoes and lettuce and plan to use potatoes and root vegetables that have a longer shelf life at the end of the week. 

Not-so-fresh ingredients at the end of the week can be part of a weekly crockpot night or a big batch of vegan chickpea pozole on Sundays where you can combine and revitalize slightly droopy produce and give it a new life! Soups like this are great because you can turn otherwise inedible food scraps into veggie broth! At StopWaste and Food Shift, we are all about giving food a delicious and waste-free second life!

A great food waste tip from our own community: Jess Bloomer, Manager of Alameda Point Collaborative Farm2Market, shows how recipe planning is an easy and effective way to prevent food waste at home.

Learn more about Food Shift and their programs to rescue surplus food that would otherwise waste away in landfills and utilize it to fuel their social enterprise kitchen.